including mechanisms in our models of ascriptive inequality...mechanisms in ascriptive inequality 3...

MECHANISMS IN ASCRIPTIVE INEQUALITYMECHANISMS IN ASCRIPTIVE INEQUALITYMECHANISMS IN ASCRIPTIVE INEQUALITYMECHANISMS IN ASCRIPTIVE INEQUALITYMECHANISMS IN ASCRIPTIVE INEQUALITY 11111

Including Mechanisms in Our

Models of Ascriptive Inequality

Barbara F. Reskin

University of Washington

Sociologists’ principal contribution to our understanding ofascriptive inequality has been to document race and sex dis-

parities. We have made little headway, however, in explainingthese disparities because most research has sought to explainvariation across ascriptive groups in more or less desirableoutcomes in terms of allocators’ motives. This approach hasbeen inconclusive because motive-based theories cannot beempirically tested. Our reliance on individual-level data and

the balkanization of research on ascriptive inequality into separate specialties forgroups defined by different ascriptive characteristics have contributed to our explana-tory stalemate. Explanation requires including mechanisms in our models—the spe-cific processes that link groups’ ascribed characteristics to variable outcomes such asearnings. I discuss mechanisms that contribute to variation in ascriptive inequality atfour levels of analysis—intrapsychic, interpersonal, societal, and organizational.

Redirecting our attention from motives to mechanisms is essential for understandinginequality and—equally important—for contributing meaningfully to social policiesthat will promote social equality.

hand, testified that he had purchased thechloroform at Adelaide’s request. Thus, theevidence showed both motive for Adelaide—a younger and more desirable spouse—andmeans—death by chloroform. But the pros-ecution could not offer convincing evidenceshowing how the chloroform got intoBartlett’s stomach. It is all but impossible toswallow because it causes vomiting. And ifchloroform had been poured down Edwin’sthroat while he was unconscious, traceswould have been found in his mouth, throat,and lungs—and none were. In view of thelack of evidence as to how the chloroformgot in Edwin’s stomach, the jury acquitted

Direct correspondence to Barbara Reskin, De-partment of Sociology, University of Washing-ton, Seattle, WA 98195-3340 ([email protected]). I thank Dorothy Friendly forsuperbly organizing my research materials andBeth Hirsh for research assistance. I am gratefulto Edgar Kiser and Michael Hechter, whose dis-agreements with my thesis forced me clarify it.Marilyn Read provided the example with which

American Sociological Review, 2003, Vol. 68 (February:1–21) 1

n one of Britain’s most celebratednineteenth century murder trials, Adelaide

Bartlett was charged with killing her hus-band, Edwin. The post-mortem revealed thepresence of chloroform, a corrosive poison,in his stomach. Reverend George Dyson,Adelaide’s intimate companion and EdwinBartlett’s decreed successor for Adelaide’s

I

2002 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS

this article begins. Finally, I am indebted toCharles Camic, Joan Huber, Rachel Kuller, StevePfaff, Franklin Wilson, and especially LowellHargens, whose comments on earlier versionshelped me refine my argument. None of thesecolleagues bears any responsibility for any re-maining problems.

This article is dedicated to the memory of RachelAnn Rosenfeld (1948–2002). For a quarter of acentury, Rachel taught all of us through her ex-emplary research on ascriptive inequality.

22222 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWAMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWAMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWAMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWAMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

Adelaide. After the verdict, Sir James Paget,founder of modern pathology, appealed pub-licly for the truth: “In the interest of science,”he implored, “she should tell us how she didit” (Farrell 1994; Fordham 1951).

In this essay, I argue that although we havebeen studying ascriptive inequality in em-ployment for over 30 years with increasinglysophisticated techniques, we have made littleheadway in explaining it.1 We have failed toprogress because most of our research hasfocused on why ascriptively-defined groupsvary on their access to societies’ rewards,rather than on how variation is produced inascriptive groups’ access to opportunities. Inother words, our stumbling block is the sameone that confronted the jurors in AdelaideBartlett’s murder trial: Until we determinehow events occur or are prevented, we can-not satisfactorily explain them. Following SirPaget, I appeal, in the interests of science andjustice, for research on how people come tobe stratified on the basis of their ascribedcharacteristics.

In the social sciences, “why” explanationstend to attribute variation across ascriptivegroups in more or less desirable outcomes toactors’ motives—the factors that prompt anindividual to take a particular action (Gar-ner 1999:727). Conflict theories of ascrip-tive inequality, which contend that dominantgroups use their monopoly over resources tomaintain their privileges, exemplify motive-based explanations. “How” explanations forvarying levels of inequality, in contrast, spellout the mechanisms that produce that varia-tion. By mechanisms, I mean specific pro-cesses that link individuals’ ascriptive char-acteristics to workplace outcomes. Mecha-nism-based theories, which tend to be lessgeneral than motive-based theories, specifythe practices whose presence and implemen-tation influence the level of inequality in awork setting. Theories about the effects offormalization, transparency, and account-ability, which I discuss below, are mecha-nism-based theories.

I argue below that deriving research ques-tions from motive-based theories withoutalso investigating the mechanisms through

which motives operate has precluded ad-vances in explaining ascriptive inequality,both because motive-based theories are allbut impossible to test empirically and be-cause they ignore the proximate causes ofvariability in ascriptive inequality. There is,of course, nothing wrong with asking why;our lack of progress lies in our failure toask how. We can neither explain ascriptivestratification nor generate useful prescrip-tions for policies to reduce it until we un-cover the mechanisms that produce thewide variation in the social and economicfates of ascriptively defined groups.

I first review explanations for ascriptiveinequality that focus solely on motives andoutlines their limitations. I then discusstheoretical and empirical research that fo-cuses on mechanisms. Although I draw ex-amples from research in labor markets andthe world of work, my thesis holds moregenerally for ascriptive stratification in otherdomains such as education, criminal justice,and health care. For convenience, I callgroups defined on the basis of an ascriptivecharacteristic “ascriptive groups.” When Italk about inequality across ascriptivegroups, I mean groups categorized by thesame ascriptive characteristic, such as color.A final prefatory note: Although I am criti-cal of much of the research in stratification,I ask readers to bear in mind that I reachedthis critical stance primarily from reflectingon the shortcomings in my own work.

MOTIVE-BASED EXPLANATIONS:

EXPLAINING ASCRIPTIVE

INEQUALITY BY ASKING “WHY”

Motives—the purposes prompting our ac-tions—are often seen in the industrializedworld as the cause of human behavior. AsTilly (1998:36–37) observed, our reliance onmotives to explain behavior reflects a narra-tive mode in which people’s motives causeevents. Thus, it is not surprising that manytheories invoke motives to explain ascriptiveinequality without addressing the mecha-nisms through which motives hypotheticallyoperate.2

1 Ascriptive inequality refers to inequalityacross groups defined by some ascriptive charac-teristic, such as sex, race, or age.

2 While working on this article, I had to fightthe impulse to speculate on why sociologists arepredisposed to ask “why” rather than “how.”


Some Examples of Motive-Based

Explanations

The attention that researchers in ascriptiveinequality give to “why” can be seen in theo-ries that view inequality as the result ofseparate individuals acting to advance theirown interests. In these theories any aversiontoward members of a different group mightmake intergroup contact psychically costlyto prejudiced actors. This reasoning ledBecker (1971) to formulate one of the firstsystematic theories of employment discrimi-nation. He claimed that the strength of em-ployers’ taste for race or sex discriminationis expressed in the above-market wages theypay whites or men to avoid having to em-ploy minorities or women. Likewise, cus-tomers’ prejudices motivate them to demanda discount for dealing with members of agroup against whom they are prejudiced, andcoworkers’ prejudices allegedly promptthem to insist on a bonus, thereby motivat-ing nonprejudiced employers to pay equallyproductive workers unequal wages (F. Blau,Ferber, and Winkler 2001:219–21).

More generally, motive-based accounts ofemployment disparities across ascriptivegroups derived from neoclassical economictheory make two important assumptions.First, the desire for maximal profits hypo-thetically prompts firms to employ the mostproductive workers available at the lowestpossible wage. Second, firms that discrimi-nate suffer a competitive disadvantage thatis a disincentive to discriminate. Giventhese assumed motives, any differenceacross ascriptive groups in job opportuni-ties or rewards must stem from group dif-ferences on productivity-related character-istics such as skills and turnover (Haagsma1998). Economists also point to profit-moti-vated employers’ desire to minimize thecosts of labor-market transactions, includ-ing information costs. Theoretically, em-ployers try to reduce the cost of informationby using ascriptive group membership as aproxy for individuals’ likely productivity oremployment costs. This profit motiveshould give rise to ascriptive inequality re-gardless of the accuracy of employers’ be-liefs about group differences on these char-acteristics (F. Blau et al. 2001:227–28; En-gland 1994; Phelps 1972).

Sociological explanations of ascriptive in-equality also assign causal status to the mo-tives (or needs) of corporate entities thatlead to ascriptive behavior by their agents.Consider, for instance, Kanter’s (1977:48,63) explanation for women’s absence frommanagerial positions before the 1980s. Infilling jobs involving uncertainty, she ar-gued, corporate managers—virtually allwhite men—preferred “ease of communica-tion and hence social certainty over thestrains of dealing with persons who are ‘dif-ferent’” (pp. 49, 58). In short, Kanter theo-rized that managers’ desire for informalcommunication motivated them to excludemembers of some ascriptively-definedgroups.

Conflict theory also often implicates mo-tives in explaining ascriptive inequality. Forinstance, Blalock (1956) theorized that whenminority groups become large enough tothreaten whites, whites respond by relegat-ing minorities to bad jobs. This thesis hasspawned numerous studies on the impact ofracial composition on black-white labormarket inequality (e.g., Beggs, Villemez,and Arnold 1997; Burr, Galle, and Fossett1991; Cassirer 1996; P. Cohen 1998; McCall2001). None of these researchers addressedthe mechanisms through which whites’ hy-pothesized fears lower blacks’ relative earn-ings, however, so a half century afterBlalock proposed this hypothesis, we still donot know how the racial composition of la-bor markets affects pay gaps between racialgroups.

More generally, the centrality of motivesin conflict theory’s assumption that peopleseek to protect—if not to increase—theirshare of scarce resources obscures the im-portance of the mechanisms through whichmotives might operate (e.g., Collins1975:232; Tilly 1998:11; Tomaskovic-Devey1993:10). In 1988, for example, I argued thatthe basic cause of occupational sex segrega-tion was men’s desire to preserve their ad-vantages by maintaining sex differentiationin a variety of spheres, including the work-place. I claimed that men—like other privi-leged groups—protect their privileged statusby making sure that the “rules” for distribut-ing rewards give them the lion’s share(Reskin 1988:60). While I still believe thisis true, I wish I had spent more of the inter-


vening 15 years investigating how specificworkplace mechanisms favor members ofdominant groups to varying degrees, andhow extra-workplace factors lead organiza-tions to alter or maintain those rules.

The causal model underlying the theoreti-cal approaches to stratification discussedabove appears in Figure 1. All these ap-proaches attribute ascriptive inequality3 tothe motives of “allocators”—those actorswho distribute scarce goods or opportunitiesamong competitors; none specifies themechanisms through which actors’ motivesproduce more or less ascriptive inequality.4

Theoretical Limitations of Motive-

Based Explanations

Motive-based explanations for ascriptive in-equality are deficient primarily because theyare immune to direct empirical verification.Five problems undermine motive-only ex-planations of inequality. First and foremost,researchers cannot observe the theoreticalcause—allocators’ motives. Motives aremental states, and mental states can rarely bedirectly observed. Indeed, some cognitivepsychologists question whether people canreally know even their own motives (Wilsonand Brekke 1994).5 “The peculiar feature ofthe imputation of motives,” as MacIver([1942] 1964:203) pointed out, “is that weare asserting a nexus between an overt ac-tion and a purely subjective factor that can-

not be exposed to direct scrutiny and that isnot as such manifest in the action.” We can-not test, for example, whether corporatemanagers select subordinates who resemblethem because they prefer social clones incertain posts, or whether blacks’ share of ametropolitan labor force affects how much(if at all) white pay-setters are threatened bytheir presence. Our inability to observe mo-tives means that we cannot know which (ifany) motives preceded an outcome. This isan important problem given that disparatemotives can produce the same result(Schelling 1978; Wilson and Brekke 1994).

Second, ascribing motives to individualsbased on their group membership assumeswithin-group homogeneity on the causalvariable. Explanations that attribute motivesto groups do not lend themselves to empiri-cal verification because they ignore varia-tion within the ascriptive group from whichthe allocators are drawn. Theories that as-sume group-based motives preclude the in-vestigation of within-group covariation in,for example, the preference for sociallysimilar subordinates and specific hiring andpromotion decisions, or in whites’ percep-tions of threat and the actions they mighttake to reduce blacks’ relative pay.

Third, motive-based theories are limited inscope, applying only to ascriptive inequalitystemming from the actions of entities thatcan engage in purposive behavior. Thesetheories cannot address inequality stemmingfrom the actions of allocators whose motivesare directed toward entirely different goalsor from practices implemented in the pastthat persist in the present. As I show below,both inequality and equality can result fromneutral mechanisms or structures that havedisparate or identical impacts on ascriptivegroups (Stryker 2001). Given the stayingpower of existing organizational policies andpractices (Carroll and Hannan 2000; Stinch-combe 1965), the effects of these practicesmay bear no relationship to the reasons theywere originally implemented.

Ascriptive inequality(Observed)

Allocator’s motive(Unobserved)

Something allocators do(Unobserved)

Figure 1. Causal Model Linking Allocator’s Motive to Ascriptive Inequality

3 Ascriptive inequality, the dependent variablein Figure 1, refers to the strength of the associa-tion between an ascribed characteristic and someoutcome.

4 Note that this discussion does not apply tomotive-centered models that specify causalmechanisms, such as efficiency theory, whichspecifies the employment practices that contrib-ute to ascriptive inequality.

5 Even if we could be certain of allocators’ mo-tives, treating them as causal agents involves alarge leap of faith given how seldom peopleachieve their explicit goals (Tilly 1998:17).


Fourth, the causal priority of motives overoutcomes cannot be assumed. As Elster(1989:16) observed, the best way to changepeople’s minds may be to change their cir-cumstances (also see Allport 1954).

Fifth and finally, disregarding the mecha-nisms through which motives operate leavesus in the dark as to the immediate causes ofvariability in ascriptive inequality. In failingto specify the intervening processes that giverise to varying levels of inequality, motive-based theories treat mechanisms as invisiblehands. Lacking direct measures of theoreti-cally meaningful explanatory variables, wemust treat disparities as evidence for boththe hypothesized causal mechanism and itscausal effect on the observed group differ-ence. As I argue below, this heavy load ofinference is often balanced precariously ona single coefficient.

Balkanization and Motive-Based

Explanations of Inequality

Reinforcing motive-based explanatory theo-ries is the division of stratification scholar-ship into largely separate specialties that arebased on different ascribed characteristics(Reskin and Charles 1999).6 This balkan-ization of scholarship on ascriptive inequal-ity reflects this country’s “metanarrative” ofdiscrimination against specific groups(Freshman 2000:428). This metanarrativeimplies that different explanations hold fordifferent types of ascriptive inequality. Bal-kanized theories tend to assume that varia-tion in some outcome across ascriptivegroups is caused by something related to theparticular characteristic that differentiatesthem.

Balkanization helps preserve the assump-tion that different motives cause differenttypes of ascriptive stratification. Sex in-equality at work, for example, has been at-tributed to men’s hope to maintain theirprivileged status or to employers’ desire tominimize turnover costs. Inequality basedon sexual orientation theoretically stemsfrom a different motive—homophobia, it-

self hypothetically a product of heterosexu-als’ insecurity regarding their own sexual-ity. Among motive-based theories advancedto explain racial inequality are antipathy orfear by employers, their belief that whitecustomers are reluctant to be served bypeople of color, or that minorities lack nec-essary skills (Moss and Tilly 1996). The ex-ploitation of undocumented immigrantworkers hypothetically stems from the xe-nophobia or fear of competition by nativeworkers (Tilly 1998:16).

Because different specialties assume thatdifferent motives produce different in-equalities, different variables appear inanalyses of the same outcome—earnings,for example. But if the lack of “soft skills”explains whites’ advantage over blacks(Moss and Tilly 1996), why not include softskills in analyses of sex differences? If em-ployers are compensating something cap-tured by AFQT scores, then why not in-clude this variable in all analyses of earn-ings? Because we have constructed motive-based stories to account for these differ-ently based expressions of ascribed inequal-ity, and the stories tend to be group-spe-cific. This essentialism reduces the powerof theoretical explanations by obscuring thepossibility that differential outcomes foreach ascriptive divide result from the samegeneral stratification processes. Of course,we cannot dismiss the possibility that someascriptive characteristics operate differentlyfrom others, but we cannot assess the im-portance of such differences in analysesthat are specific to a single group.

Individual-Level Data and Motive-

Based Explanations

Perpetuating the problem of motive-basedtheories is researchers’ heavy use of indi-vidual-level data to study ascriptive inequal-ity.7 In such data, explanatory variables arelimited to individuals’ characteristics (andthe individuals are those allocated to, notallocators, the actors whose motives aretheoretically relevant in most motive-based

6 The structure of the American SociologicalAssociation mirrors this balkanization. The ASA,which has no section on stratification, has sixsections on various ascribed bases of inequality.

7 Although these data are usually analyzed forindividuals, they may be aggregated spatially tometropolitan areas or states, or functionally tooccupations or industries.


theories).8 As a result, data analysis typicallybegins by comparing the credentials and de-ficiencies of the ascriptive groups. Tilly(1998) summed up this state of affairs as“habit”:

[F]aced with male/female differences inwages, investigators look for average hu-man-capital differences among the individu-als involved. Noticing that school perfor-mances of children correlate with the socialpositions of their parents, researchers at-tribute those differences in performance to“family background” rather than consideringthat teachers and school officials may shapethose performances by their own categoricalresponses to parental social positions. En-countering racial differences in job assign-ments, researchers ask whether members ofdistinct racial categories are distributed dif-ferently by residential location. (P. 30)

While I agree with Tilly regarding our dis-position toward individual-level explana-tions, it is not simply a matter of habit. Indi-vidual-level explanations are the only expla-nations possible with individual-level data,and, like the gambler who keeps returningto a crooked casino because it’s the onlygame in town, many of us turn repeatedly toindividual-level data, or direct our studentsto them, because they are almost the onlyreadily available data.9

In quantitative analyses of individual-leveldata, the conclusions we draw depend onwhether or not the partial coefficient forsome ascribed status is statistically signifi-cant. Although researchers often speak ofwhether an ascribed characteristic “affects”the dependent variable (Sørensen 1998:250),

whether or not a regression coefficient for anascriptive characteristic is statistically sig-nificant indicates only whether there is anassociation to be explained in a particulardata set and given a particular specificationof the model. If the partial regression coeffi-cient is significant, we tend to attribute itseffect to some unobserved mental states,such as bias or threat, on the part of an allo-cator. If the partial coefficient is not statisti-cally significant, then we infer different (andexonerating) motives by the allocator—tomaximize productivity or reduce turnover,for example.

A case in point is a debate in the Ameri-can Sociological Review over whether thegrowing wage gap between black men andwhite men in the late 1970s and early 1980sreflected increasing wage discrimination.On the basis of an unexplained effect ofrace on earnings in 1985, but not 1976,Cancio, Evans, and Maume (1996:551) con-cluded that race discrimination played anincreasing role in the wage gap. Farkas andVicknair (1996) disputed Cancio and hercolleagues’ conclusion by showing that in-cluding a measure of cognitive skill amongthe regressors wiped out the significant ef-fect of race on the pay gap. They inter-preted this result as indicating that employ-ers hired blacks for lower paying jobs thanwhites because whites had stronger cogni-tive skills, not because employers were bi-ased against blacks.10

This intellectual skirmish over what be-longs on the right-hand side in a regressionequation—and the longer-running fightover the role discrimination plays in ascrip-tive inequality—is inevitable when evi-dence for or against allocators’ hypoth-esized motives boils down to the statisticalsignificance of the residual effect of an as-cribed characteristic. Bearing this in mind,consider a second example. Although male

8 Some readers may object that this assertiondenies agency to workers. Certainly there areworkers who can write their own ticket with re-spect to their occupation, employer, rank, hours,working conditions, benefits, and pay; but theyare they exception.

9 This is not the case for the employer data inthe National Organizations Study (Kalleberg etal. 1996) or the Multi-City Survey of Urban In-equality. These data sets have made possible im-portant mechanism-based research of ascriptiveinequality in the workplace (Baldi and McBrier1997; Holzer 1996; Huffman and Velasco 1997;O’Connor, Tilly, and Bobo 2001; Reskin andMcBrier 2000; Tomaskovic-Devey, Kalleberg,and Marsden 1996).

10 In response, Maume, Cancio, and Evans(1996) challenged Farkas and Vicknair’s measureof cognitive skill, the Armed Forces QualifyingTest (AFQT) score, as racially biased and hencean improper control for racial differences in cog-nitive ability. For discussions of the validity ofusing AFQT scores to capture racial differencesin cognitive skills, see Fischer et al. 1996,Rodgers and Spriggs (1996), Jencks and Phillips(1998), and Raudenbush and Kasim (1998).


applicants to a high-tech firm were offeredsignificantly higher starting salaries thanwomen were, Peterson, Saporta, and Seidel(2000:794–95) concluded that the firm hadnot discriminated against women because,net of age and education, the sex differencein starting pay disappeared.11 The firm alsomade whites significantly higher final of-fers than they made Asians and they raisedtheir first offer significantly more forwhites than for nonwhites. These race dif-ferences disappeared when the researchersadded two variables to the equation: whereapplicants were first interviewed (at thefirm or on campus), and how applicants hadlearned of the job (through a classified ad, aheadhunter, or a personal contact).

Here too, researchers’ conclusions aboutthe reasons for group differences depend onwhat variables they include on the right-hand side of the regression equation. Al-though segregation is an important cause ofthe female-male pay gap (Jacobs 1999;Peterson and Morgan 1995), and female andmale hires were apparently dissimilarly dis-tributed across jobs (Peterson et al. 2000:795), Peterson and his colleagues did not in-clude in regressions any measure of the jobsapplicants were offered. Meanwhile, they in-explicably included the site of the first inter-view as a determinant of starting pay. For re-gression analyses to explain group differ-ences in pay, the specifications of earningsregressions must capture the way allocatorsset pay.

Ultimately, however, the problem in thesepapers, and in many others (e.g., Reskin andRoss 1992), stems from attempts to explainrace and sex inequality by workers’ personalcharacteristics. I am not arguing that indi-vidual-level analyses provide nothing to ourunderstanding of ascriptive inequality. Theyreveal group differences that require expla-nation (e.g., Budig and England 2002;Waldfogel 1997), and they can rule out indi-vidual-level explanations for these differ-ences. Without indicators of the causalmechanisms, however, we cannot discoverthe causal processes that lead levels of in-

equality to vary, so the theoretical meaningof the results is inevitably a matter of debate.Instead of enhancing our understanding ofhow ascriptive groups’ outcomes come to bethe same or different, we embark on a wild-goose chase in which we infer support for oragainst motive-based models based onwhether ascriptive statuses have significanteffects on some outcome, net of some set ofindividual-level control variables.

Summary

Most of the theories purporting to accountfor employment inequality emphasize allo-cators’ motives. This approach, I argue, haskept us from being able to explain variationin ascriptive inequality. Motive-based theo-ries cannot be empirically tested because wecannot observe people’s motives. Motives donot have an isomorphic relationship to out-comes. Motive-based theories attribute mo-tives wholesale to all members of an ascrip-tive group, precluding analyses that take ad-vantage of the explanatory power of varia-tion among allocators. And even if we couldestablish why allocators distribute rewardsmore or less equally, this knowledge wouldoffer little guidance for modifying socialpolicies. If we are serious about explaininginequality, our theories and our analyticmodels must include indicators of causalmechanisms.

MECHANISM-BASED MODELS OF

ASCRIPTIVE INEQUALITY

Motive-based models of ascriptive inequal-ity consign the processes that convert actors’motives into more or less disparate outcomesto a black box (see Figure 1). Inside thatblack box are mechanisms—the interveningvariables that link ascribed characteristics tooutcomes of varying desirability. Mecha-nisms are the processes that convert inputs(or independent variables) into outputs (ordependent variables). Thus, a mechanism is“an account of what brings about change insome variable” (Sørensen 1998:240). Thephysical world provides hundreds of ex-amples of mechanisms: gears that convertpower into speed and speed into power, cir-cuit breakers that interrupt the flow of elec-tricity, brake pads whose friction against

11 From this and two other studies, Peterson etal. concluded that “women probably face no dis-advantage in the hiring process in midsized andlarge U.S. organizations” (p. 813).


wheels translates pressure on the brake pedalinto deceleration.

The social mechanisms I discuss here aresocial arrangements that link ascriptivegroup membership to opportunities and re-wards.12 For example, the mechanism thatconverts workers’ hours of work per weekinto their weekly earnings might be a pre-negotiated agreement that stipulates anhourly wage, a minimum-wage law, or aninformal arrangement in which wages are atthe discretion of the employer. Many mecha-nisms can produce or prevent an associationbetween workers’ race and their median an-nual earnings, including those practices gov-erning workers’ access to employment andto standard versus nonstandard jobs, and,within firms, access to specific job assign-ments, as well as the practices that set payper job or unit of work.13

Superficially, a mechanism-based causalmodel resembles the motive-based model(compare Figures 1 and 2). The importantdifference is that instead of an unobservablecausal motive and an unspecified proximatecause (“something allocators do”), inmechanism-based models the proximatecause of ascriptive inequality is specifiedand observable. Consider, for example, how

employers identify prospective workers.Most often allocators—employers or theiremployees—draw on employees’ personalnetworks (Marsden and Gorman 1998). Be-cause people’s informal networks tend to behomophilous, network hiring links the race,ethnicity, and gender of possible workers towhether and for what job they are hired(Elliott 2001; Fernandez and Weinberg1997; Lin 2000). Ethnographic research andcase studies point to why employers hirethrough networks—recruiting through infor-mal networks is less costly, creates a richerpool of candidates, allows workers to hoardopportunities, and facilitates excludingworkers from discounted groups (Fernandez,Castilla, and Moore 2000; Fernandez andWeinberg 1997; Waters 1999:105–110). Butthe difficulty of knowing which if any ofthese motives prompted a firm to recruitthrough networks prevents “why” scholar-ship from explaining variation in ascriptiveinequality.

Although a case can be made for givingtop priority to identifying organizational-level mechanisms because they are the proxi-mate causes of levels of ascriptive inequality(Reskin 2000), we must also understand therole of mechanisms that operates indirectlythrough organizational-level mechanisms, asFigure 3 illustrates. Below I discuss mecha-nisms at the intrapsychic, interpersonal, so-cietal, and organizational levels.

Intrapsychic Mechanisms

Intrapsychic mechanisms, by definition, in-volve mental processes and hence are diffi-cult to observe. Nonetheless, social cognitionresearch has experimentally implicated cer-tain intrapsychic mechanisms—automaticcognitive errors—in ascriptive inequality(for summaries, see Brewer and Browne

12 In arguing that social mechanisms are ob-servable, I part company with rational-choicetheorists, for whom social mechanisms are unob-served theoretical constructs whose high level ofabstraction is necessary for broad explanatorypower (Hedström and Swedberg 1998:10, 13;Kiser and Hechter 1991).

13 The mechanisms that cause ascriptive in-equality to vary do not include abstract or globalphenomena such as devaluation, discrimination,exclusion, exploitation, meritocracy, oppression,and social closure that describe but do not ex-plain patterns of inequality (e.g., Reskin 1988;Tomaskovic-Devey 1993; Weber [1922] 1968).


“Whatever”(Unobserved)

Allocation mechanism(Observed)

Figure 2. Causal Model Linking Allocation Mechanism to Ascriptive Inequality

Note: A variety of factors (denoted as “whatever”) influence what allocation mechanisms are operative:organizational decisions, economic constraints, or allocators’ conscious motives or automatic cognitivebiases. Although the influence of these factors on mechanisms deserves study, we can explain the variationin ascriptive inequality without knowing why organizations or individuals implement particular allocationmechanisms.


1998; Fiske 1998). The techniques throughwhich researchers have observed thesemechanisms permit investigation of theirimpact on workplace inequality, so I focuson them.14

Social cognition theory assumes that ourbrains seek to minimize cognitive effort inpart through automatic categorization andassociation. According to considerable ex-perimental evidence, we automatically cat-egorize people into ingroups (people likeus), to whom we attribute favorable traits,and outgroups (people unlike us), withwhom we associate less favorable traits. Weprefer members of our ingroup whom we arepredisposed to trust, cooperate with, and fa-vor in distributing opportunities (Brewer andBrowne 1998; Fiske 1998:362). Consider anexperiment in which subjects were in-structed to distribute rewards between aningroup member and an outgroup member,either equally or based on performance. Sub-jects tended to reward the performersequally when the outgroup member did bet-ter; when the ingroup member did better,they tended to base the reward on perfor-mance (Ng 1984).

We also automatically link certain traits tosocial categories. In other words, we stereo-type people based on group membership.Moreover, we process information in waysthat help to maintain our stereotypes (Brown1995; Fiske 1998:367). Exposure to stereo-type-linked activities or traits can activateour stereotypes and thereby affect our be-havior (Greenwald and Banaji 1995). For in-stance, white subjects subliminally “primed”with (i.e., exposed to) photographs of thefaces of young black men became angrier

about a rigged computer glitch than subjectsprimed with photographs of white men, andwhite subjects primed with pictures of blackmen displayed more hostility toward an un-seen partner in a cooperative task than sub-jects primed with pictures of white men(Chen and Bargh 1997). This and other re-search suggest that exposure to stimuli asso-ciated with members of a stereotyped groupbrings to mind the traits stereotypicallylinked to that group—in this case, the ste-reotype of young black men as hostile.

Sociological theories about intrapsychicmechanisms lack the sophisticated measure-ment techniques that characterize psycho-logical approaches to cognitive bias. Forexample, Kanter (1977) and P. Blau (1977:78–83) each theorized that skewed groupcomposition fostered ascriptive inequalitybecause members of statistical minoritiesare particularly visible to majority-groupmembers. Hypothetically, majorities’ per-ceptions of numerically conspicuous mi-norities are distorted, leading them to be-have in ways that disadvantage minority-group members.

Status expectations research has alsoshown that intrapsychic mechanisms con-tribute to ascriptive inequality. Theoreticallywhen persons from different status groupsinteract, members of both groups expecthigher-status group members to outperformlower status-group members (Berger, Cohen,and Zelditch 1972; Ridgeway 1997). Theseexpectations act as self-fulfilling prophecies,especially when the ascribed status that dif-ferentiates the groups is salient. For ex-ample, in mixed-sex interaction men havemore opportunities to perform and othersevaluate their performance more positively.Although this approach is better suited to an-swering “why?” than “how?” (Ridgeway1997:223), its systematic theoretical exposi-


Organizationalmechanisms(Observed)

Intrapsychic mechanisms(Unobserved)

Interpersonal mechanisms(Observed)

Societal mechanisms(Observed)

Figure 3. Causal Model Linking Distal and Proximate Allocation Mechanisms to AscriptiveInequality

14 Readers can assess their own automatic race,sex, and age stereotypes by taking the ImplicitAssociation Tests at http:/implicit/harvard.edu.

1 01 01 01 01 0 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWAMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWAMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWAMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWAMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

tion provides a promising foundation for in-corporating observable mechanisms.

Intrapsychic mechanisms, although theobject of intriguing research, remain largelybeyond observation. But sociologists’ grow-ing interest in cognitive processes shouldauger the development of techniques for ob-serving intrapsychic mechanisms that affectour reactions to others, and thereby contrib-ute to explaining variability in ascriptive in-equality.

Interpersonal Mechanisms

Interpersonal mechanisms can affect theamount of ascriptive inequality in the work-place by converting allocators’ mental statesinto differential behavior toward others de-pending on their ascriptive characteristics. IfKanter (1977) were correct in attributingwomen’s exclusion from managerial jobs tomanagers’ preferences for similar others,this effect was brought about through man-agers’ interaction with candidates for mana-gerial posts. The extent to which allocatorsbase personnel decisions on an allocatees’age, sex, color, accent, or perceived sexualorientation obviously contributes to ascrip-tive inequality in work settings. Innumerableexamples of equal treatment and unequaltreatment are available; space permits justtwo. First, according to one of the few stud-ies of employment discrimination againsthomosexuals, research confederates whoportrayed gay or lesbian applicants weretreated more negatively during the interviewthan persons who presented themselves asstraight, although they were as likely asstraight applicants to get a job offer (Helb etal. 2002). Second, a race discrimination suitagainst Kansas City Power asserted thatmanagers made special efforts on behalf ofwhite, but not black, applicants for promo-tion, such as making inquiries when their ap-plication did not meet minimum require-ments (Ross v. Kansas City Power and Light,293 F. 3d 1041 [2002]).

Importantly, allocators’ behavior towardpersons from different groups can indirectlyreduce their relative performance. Such ef-fects often occur in informal interaction. Forinstance, white experimental subjects whointerviewed black job applicants tended tosit farther from them, made more speech er-

rors, and ended the interviews sooner thanthose interviewing whites. White inter-viewees whose interviewers behaved towardthem in ways that interviewers did withblacks were more nervous and less effectivethan those treated in ways white interview-ers treat white interviewees (Word, Zanna,and Cooper 1974). Thus, white allocators’differential interaction with black and whiteinterviewees precipitates poorer interviewperformance by blacks that presumably re-duces their evaluations relative to those ofwhite interviewees.

Allocators’ actions can elicit behavior inothers that may culminate in more or lessascriptive inequality (Bargh 1999:372). Inthe experiment described above (Chen andBargh 1997), for instance, both the experi-menters and the experimental subjects ratedthe task partners of the subjects who hadbeen exposed to black faces as more hostilethan they rated the partners of subjects whohad been exposed to white faces.15 In thiscase, the nonactivation or activation of ra-cial stereotypes by subliminal exposure topictures of black or white males affectedwhether whites behaved with hostility to-ward their task partners (an intrapsychicmechanism), and their hostility in turn pro-voked hostility in their partners (an interper-sonal mechanism).

In sum, intrapsychic and interpersonalmechanisms can affect levels of ascriptiveinequality, depending on whether organiza-tional mechanisms intervene to blunt oreliminate their effects.

Societal Mechanisms

Whether organizations follow personnelpractices that foster or discourage ascriptiveinequality depends on external social andeconomic factors. Among others, thesesocietal mechanisms include normative con-siderations within establishments’ institu-tional communities, the expectations of theirclientele, collective bargaining agreements,public transportation routes, and laws andregulations. The impact of Title 7 of the1964 Civil Rights Act illustrates how soci-etal mechanisms can indirectly affect ascrip-

15 All the interaction partners had been primedwith pictures of white faces.

MECHANISMS IN ASCRIPTIVE INEQUALITYMECHANISMS IN ASCRIPTIVE INEQUALITYMECHANISMS IN ASCRIPTIVE INEQUALITYMECHANISMS IN ASCRIPTIVE INEQUALITYMECHANISMS IN ASCRIPTIVE INEQUALITY 1 11 11 11 11 1

tive inequality within work settings by influ-encing what employers do.

Title 7 and its amendments bar employ-ment discrimination based on race, nationalorigin, religion, sex, pregnancy, age, and dis-ability. Of course, outlawing a behavior doesnot necessarily eliminate it. As Galanter(1974:149) observed, systems can accom-modate major changes in the rules withoutaltering everyday practices or redistributingadvantage. The impact of laws on workplacemechanisms depends on their implementa-tion. In the case of Title 7, Congress chargedthe Equal Employment Opportunities Com-mission (EEOC) and the federal courts withimplementation (Blumrosen 1993; Burstein1989; Burstein and Edwards 1994; Graham1990).

The activities of enforcement agencies canaffect employers’ behavior by challenging orcondoning particular personnel actions, bypermitting business as usual, or by requiringchanges in employment structures. Initially,the EEOC had the authority to do just threethings: investigate complaints, attempt toconciliate those it deemed valid, and issueregulations (Graham 1990). In practice, formuch of its existence the EEOC has given afree hand to employers. In its handling ofcomplaints the EEOC signals the businesscommunity what kinds of practices are per-missible, and after the 1970s, the messagewas that employers did not have much tofear (but see Heckman and Payner 1989).16

Over the longer run, variation in theagency’s resources, political mandate, andspecific actions demonstrates its capacity toaffect employers’ compliance with Title 7(Blumrosen 1993). For example, its require-ment that large firms report employmentbreakdowns across broad occupational cat-egories by race and sex compels employersto assemble records in a form in which theyand the EEOC can discern inequality. Thus,the extent of enforcement of Title 7 by theEEOC has been an important mechanism, al-beit one that has often permitted ascription.

Judicial interpretations of Title 7 have alsoshaped whether and how firms implementpersonnel practices that contribute to levels

of ascriptive inequality. The direction of theimpact of federal courts has varied substan-tially with shifts in its political makeup. In1971, the Supreme Court greatly extendedTitle 7’s reach by ruling that neutral employ-ment practices that have a disparate adverseimpact on members of protected ascriptivegroups are discriminatory, unless justified asa business necessity. By relieving plaintiffsof the near-insurmountable burden of prov-ing intentional discrimination, this decisionencouraged employers to alter selection cri-teria or other practices that contributed toascriptive inequality. Its effect during the1970s was to reduce ascriptive inequality byprompting firms to modify employmentpractices.

But what the courts giveth, the courts cantake away. During the 1980s, federal courtschipped away at the disparate-impact doc-trine, making it increasingly difficult forplaintiffs to win disparate-impact lawsuits.By 1979, for example, the Supreme Courtallowed New York City Transit Authority toexclude participants in Methadone-treatmentprograms from all its jobs, despite the ban’sdisparate impact on minorities and the Tran-sit Authority’s failure to show that a globalban was a business necessity (Lye 1998).Congress amended Title 7 in 1991 to explic-itly ban disparate-impact discrimination, butduring the next decade federal courts rarelyfound practices with a disparate impact inviolation of the law.

The right of workers who believe theyhave experienced discrimination to sue theiremployers is a third mechanism throughwhich Title 7 has affected employers’ prac-tices. But workers’ access to the courts hasvaried over time, as has the pressure on em-ployers to check practices linked to ascrip-tive inequality. Title 7 initially allowed com-plainants to sue their employers if the EEOCprovided no remedy. Until 1992, however,private attorneys lacked an economic incen-tive to take discrimination cases, given thelow odds of winning (Burstein 1989;Donohue and Siegelman 1991; Selmi 1996,1998). In amending Title 7 in 1991 to giveplaintiffs the right to compensatory and pu-nitive damages, Congress strengthened law-suits as a mechanism to challenge ascriptiveinequality—a financial inducement for attor-neys to take on discrimination cases. In less

16 In the late 1990s, the EEOC has taken tocourt only a few of the approximately 80,000complaints it receives annually (Selmi 1998).


than a decade the annual number of lawsuitstripled from fewer than 7,000 to more than21,000.

Although employers’ litigation victoriesfar outnumber their losses, a few highly vis-ible multi-million-dollar judgments forplaintiffs have influenced employers’ prac-tices. Some have done so directly throughconsent decrees that involve major alter-ations in employers’ personnel practices. Forinstance, Home Depot revamped its humanresources system to conform to a consentdecree, developing minimum qualificationsfor each job and computerizing applicationsand thereby reducing network hiring (Sturm2001). Often the impact of plaintiffs’ victo-ries has gone beyond their own employers.After Texaco paid $3 million to settle a sexbias case, a corporate interest group warnedits members to carefully review their paypolicies.

Finally, corporations’ potential legal li-ability has drawn the attention of entrepre-neurs marketing products that may reduceemployers’ risk of liability. For example,employers can reduce their liability throughpractices designed to signal nondiscrimina-tory intent (Bisom-Rapp 2001). Such “bulletproofing” includes training on diversity andsexual harassment. Discrimination-liabilityinsurance is also being marketed (Bielby andBourgeois 2002). The impact of these prod-ucts on the mechanisms organizations imple-ment that in turn affect levels of ascriptiveinequality remains to be determined.

In sum, Title 7’s restrictions on employ-ment discrimination created several extra-workplace mechanisms that in turn shouldinfluence firm-level mechanisms that affectlevels of ascriptive inequality at work. Sys-tematic investigation of the impact of varia-tion in these and other societal-level mecha-nisms on organizational mechanisms willenhance our ability to explain ascriptive in-equality at work.

Organizational Mechanisms

At the organizational level, mechanisms thataffect ascriptive inequality include the prac-tices through which employers and theiragents somehow link workers’ ascriptivecharacteristics to work outcomes. Sometimesemployers base opportunities and rewards on

workers’ ascriptive statuses as a matter ofpolicy, favoring some groups and ignoring orharming others. For example, Atlantic Com-pany refused to allow an African Americanmanufacturing worker to wear “fingerwaves” because this hair style was “too dif-ferent,” rejected her request to wear her hairbraided, and then told her that her ponytailwas “too drastic,” although white coworkerswore ponytails (Hollins v. Atlantic Co., U.S.Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit 188 F.3d 652 [1999]). More generally, employersmight reserve jobs for co-religionists, givepreference to heterosexuals, provide fewermedical benefits for one sex than the other,forbid workers from speaking any languagebut English while on the job, or use race orgender-conscious practices as part of court-ordered affirmative action. Variation in suchpolicies mandating differential treatment af-fects levels of ascriptive inequality acrossfirms (e.g., Konrad and Linnehan 1999;Reskin 1998; Watkins 1993).17 Moreover,some superficially neutral practices are de-signed to disadvantage particular groups. Forexample, the EEOC sued Alamo Car Rentalfor enacting a policy prohibiting female em-ployees from wearing head scarves and thenfiring a Muslim woman for wearing a headscarf during Ramadan (http://www.eeoc.gov/press/9-30-02f.html).

Although personnel practices are unlikelyto override organizational policies mandat-ing differential treatment, the personnelpractices that organizations implement cancheck or permit the effects of intrapsychicand interpersonal mechanisms. And their or-ganizational practices are shaped by societalmechanisms. Thus, organizational practicesare the immediate causes of variation in as-criptive inequality.

One practice that strongly affects whetherallocators act on their preference is whetherorganizations conceal or make known to de-

17 For example, employers have fired Navajo(EEOC v. RD’s Drive-In 2002, http://www/eeoc.gov/press/9-30-02-c/html) and Hispanicworkers (EEOC v. Premier Operator Services,U.S. District court for the Northern District ofTexas 113 F. Supp. 2d 1066 [2000]) for speakinglanguages other than English while in the work-place. For additional examples of cases involv-ing differential treatment, see http://www.eeoc.gov/pr.html.


cision-makers allocatees’ ascriptive charac-teristics (Wilson and Brekke 1994). Varia-tion in civil service rules illustrate the im-pact of revealing or suppressing this infor-mation. For several decades in the twentiethcentury, applicants for Civil Service posi-tions were required to attach photographs totheir applications: Ensuring that decision-makers knew applicants’ race and sex main-tained a white Civil Service for decades(Rosenbloom 1977:51–58). More recently,changes in the way that major symphony or-chestras selected musicians show the impactof evaluators’ exposure to allocatees’ as-cribed characteristics. The introduction of“blind auditions” during the 1970s and1980s brought female musicians into majorsymphony orchestras (Goldin and Rouse2000). Finally, whether applicants must ap-ply for jobs in person or can conceal theirascribed characteristics through computer-ized application processes influences ascrip-tive inequality in hiring through exposurecontrol (e.g., Richtel 2000; Sturm 2001).

In many situations in which employers al-locate opportunities and rewards, evaluatees’ascriptive characteristics cannot be con-cealed from allocators. Whether these char-acteristics influence allocators’ decisions de-pends on how effectively personnel practicescheck allocators’ discretionary behaviors(Bisom-Rapp 2001; Sturm 2001). Generally,the more bureaucratized personnel practicesare, the less freedom managers have to acton their own stereotypes, biases, or impulsesto favor ingroup members. The effects ofbureaucratization operate through career lad-ders, job analysis and compensation sys-tems, collective bargaining agreements dic-tating working conditions, and the availabil-ity of family leave and flexible scheduling,among others (Dobbin et al. 1993; Foddyand Smithson 1999). Of course, to the ex-tent that allocators are bound by these poli-cies will condition their impact (Edelman1992; Flack 1999; Hochschild 1997; Nelsonand Bridges 1999).

With respect to evaluation processes, theavailability of relevant, objective informa-tion on evaluatees; the specificity of evalua-tion criteria; and the extent to which deci-sion-makers are required to use the criteriaall matter for levels of ascriptive inequality.In contrast, the more that performance-re-

lated information on allocatees is availableto evaluators, the less their ascriptive bias(Pugh and Wahrman 1983; Swim et al. 1989:421). In addition, the vaguer and harder tooperationalize the selection criteria are, themore likely that allocators’ discretion willaffect their decisions (Blalock 1991).

One mechanism affecting allocators’ dis-cretion is the extent to which employers holdallocators accountable for their decisions(Salancik and Pfeffer 1978; Tetlock 1992).Accountability exists when allocators antici-pate both having to communicate their deci-sions and having to defend those decisions(Tetlock 1983). Whether or not allocatorsanticipate being held accountable for theirjudgments affects how they mentally encodeinformation, thereby influencing the likeli-hood of cognitive bias. Accountability ismost likely to reduce ascriptive bias whenallocators know they must communicateevaluations to candidates and justify them totheir superiors (Blalock 1991:103). In otherwords, the transparency of allocation pro-cesses and their outcomes conditions the im-pact of accountability on ascriptive bias(Blalock 1991:41).

Another broad group of mechanisms in-cludes those established to make ascriptivebiases visible to employers, workers, andenforcement agencies. Particularly importantis whether or not records of employmentoutcomes are collected and can be examinedby ascriptive groups.18 For example, re-search subjects examined hypothetical datain which the sexes were equally qualified onaverage, but men’s average pay exceededwomen’s. When they reviewed one female-male pair at a time, subjects were signifi-cantly less likely to detect discriminationand judged any discrimination to be less se-rious than when they reviewed aggregateddata for the hypothetical firm (Clayton andCrosby 1992:73–79). In addition, whetherearnings were recorded by ascriptive groupmembership influenced whether allocateesnoticed and objected to any ascriptive in-equality (Major 1989).

18 The Office for Federal Contract Compliancerequires contractors to keep such records by raceand sex in order to make it easier to employersas well as regulators to detect unequal treatment(Cordova 1992).


The existence of sanctions exerts an im-portant effect on how firms’ personnel prac-tices influence ascriptive inequality. For in-stance, the California Personnel Board en-couraged state agencies to integrate all jobs,but threatened budget cuts for only thoseagencies that failed to increase women’s andminorities’ presence in specific targetedjobs. The targeted jobs became more inte-grated, but the nontargeted jobs becamemore segregated (Baron, Mittman, andNewman 1991).

The amount of ascriptive inequality in anorganization also depends on whether orga-nizational practices have a disparate impacton ascriptive groups. Disparate impact oc-curs when some neutral mechanism trans-lates group differences on position, experi-ence, or a credential into differential out-comes for ascriptive groups. For example, anepotism requirement for membership in anall-white union local, although neutral on itsface, excluded workers of color from the lo-cal (Freshman 2000, note 142). Whether ornot policies have a disparate impact on as-criptive groups depends both on the practiceand on whether the groups’ members are dif-ferentially situated with respect to the prac-tice (Hernes 1998:81–82). Whether or not apractice has a disparate impact can dependon whether a firm employs ascriptive groupsin different jobs and whether the risk of alayoff, the chance of a promotion, or accessto some benefit depends on one’s organiza-tional location (e.g., Yamagata et al. 1997).19

Summary. The presence and form of or-ganizational practices that require, permit, orforestall differential treatment are the proxi-mate causes of varying levels of ascriptiveinequality in places of work. They operateprimarily by affecting allocators’ access toinformation about allocatees’ ascribed char-acteristics, controlling whether allocatorscan act on such information, and the extentto which they make differential outcomesvisible. More generally, organizational-levelmechanisms influence levels of ascriptiveinequality by the extent to which they ex-plicitly treat members of different ascriptivegroups differently; the extent to which they

mediate the effects of intrapsychic or inter-personal mechanisms by curtailing, allow-ing, or even encouraging allocators to usediscretion in personnel decisions; and theextent to which neutral organizational prac-tices have a different effect on members ofdifferent ascriptive groups.

IDENTIFYING MECHANISMS

FOR STUDY

Here I suggest ways to identify mechanismsfor investigation. A promising approach liesin exploring contextual and structural “ef-fects.” Structure and context are fundamen-tal concepts in sociology because they high-light the importance of setting on social pro-cesses. Although structural and contextualeffects are not themselves mechanisms(Sørensen 1998:253), they are proxies formechanisms that vary across settings. Varia-tion in the association between cities’ racialcomposition and the earnings gap across re-gions illustrates this point: Racial pay gapsfor women are low in midwestern cities withlow immigration, high-wage manufacturing,and higher levels of unionization (McCall2001:538). Researchers should pursue howcollective bargaining and the typical pay ofblue-collar jobs penalize minority womenfor their labor market share. Other promis-ing contextual or structural differences in-clude the smaller racial pay gap in govern-ment jobs than in the private sector (Grodskyand Pager 2001), the difference in whitemen’s promotion rates across work settingsvarying in their race and sex composition(Baldi and McBrier 1997), and men’s greateradvantage in the chance to exert influenceover female coworkers when the sexes workin the same rather than in separate establish-ments (Mueller, Mulinge, and Glass 2002:176). These and many other structural andcontextual effects point to mechanisms forstudy.

Theory and research also can suggest or-ganizational-level mechanisms for study.Research building on Weber’s ([1922] 1968)recognition of bureaucracy’s constrainingimpact on managerial discretion has identi-fied several likely mechanisms that affectascriptive inequality, foremost among thembeing formalization (Bielby 2000; Nelsonand Bridges 1999; Perry, Davis-Blake, and

19 The alternative to disparate impact—identi-cal impact—is likely to be taken for granted andhence is less obvious as a mechanism.


Kulik 1994; Reskin 2000). Investigating thespecific processes that link organizations’sex composition to women’s share of topjobs can adjudicate among theoretical inter-pretation, like labor supply, institutionalnorms, and internal pressure groups (Cohen,Broschak, and Haveman 1998; Konrad andPfeffer 1991; Reskin and McBrier 2000;Tomaskovic-Devey et al. 1996). Given therole of organizational inertia for maintaininginequality, Baron and Pfeffer (1994:205)called for research on its causes. Kim’s(1999) account of the effect on the pay gapin 1993 of a 1931 decision by the CaliforniaCivil Service to pay workers in predomi-nantly female jobs less than comparablyqualified workers in male jobs demonstratesthis strategy’s potential payoff in illuminat-ing the mechanisms implicated in ascriptiveinequality. If, as Cancio et al. (1996) specu-lated, the declining enforcement of EEOlaws widened the racial pay gap, we need toinvestigate how this occurred. Finally, dem-onstrated disparities beg the question ofmechanisms. Smith’s (2001, 2002) reportthat African American workers are lesslikely than whites to have authority or con-trol over financial resources at work directsus to look for operative mechanisms.

Case studies of firms offer a third sourcefor identifying mechanisms for study.Fernandez’s (2001) detailed account of howtechnological change at a food-processingcompany increased race and sex wage in-equality is a case in point. Mechanisms ap-parently contributing to these increases in-cluded skill upgrading concomitant withcomputerizing the production process,whose effects fell particularly heavily on thefirm’s black workers. Dampening the ascrip-tive effect of technological change were ano-layoff policy during retooling, a wageguarantee for workers in retooled jobs, andsubstantial retraining. Of course, case stud-ies do not permit conclusions about causalmechanisms unless they also consider eventsthat did not occur (e.g., the firm declining touse upgrading as an opportunity to bust theunion or to move to a right-to-work state, orfailing to actively recruit minority and fe-male candidates for the new high-tech jobs).In addition, they typically lack the covari-ation needed for conclusions about causalmechanisms. Nonetheless, case studies are

excellent sources for identifying possiblecausal mechanisms (Cockburn 1991; Cohn1985; Milkman 1987; Pierce 1998). Studiesof organizations’ attempts to reduce ascrip-tive inequality (e.g., Sturm 2001) are espe-cially likely to be useful.

Discrimination lawsuits provide a fourthsource of possible mechanisms for system-atic analysis. Because plaintiffs must assertexactly how employers have disadvantagedthem, legal documents provide detailed ac-counts of employment practices from bothsides. Nelson and Bridges’s (1999) analysesof four discrimination cases illustrate howlitigation can reveal possible causal mecha-nisms in ascriptive inequality. They found,for example, that by benchmarking predomi-nantly-male and predominantly-female jobsto jobs in the private sector, public employ-ers exacerbated private-sector pay dispari-ties. They discovered too that unionizationcontributed to the earnings disparity betweenthe sexes because men’s jobs were morelikely to be unionized, and male-dominatedlocals were more influential than female-dominated locals in the state’s pay-settingbureaucracy. Law review articles also out-line mechanisms (e.g., Oppenheimer 1993;Schultz 1998; Schultz and Petterson 1992),and published lawsuits provide considerabledetail as to mechanisms (e.g., Wards Cove v.Atonio, U.S. Supreme Court 493 U.S. 802;110 S. Ct. 38 [1989]).

CONCLUSIONS

Insofar as data exist, sociologists have thor-oughly documented sex and race disparitiesin work outcomes.20 And there our achieve-ments end. Although researchers try to ex-plain observed inequality, theories about ac-tors’ motives guide the search for explana-tion, and it is all but impossible to know ac-tors’ motives. The product of this approachis not explanation, but never-ending and un-profitable debate over the role of unobservedmotives. Although the most satisfying expla-nations address both why and how, as Whorf(1956) put it, “The WHY of understanding

20 Disparities across some racial categories,across ethnic groups, and by sexual orientation,disability, age, and religion are less well docu-mented.


may remain for a long time mysterious butthe HOW . . . of understanding . . . is dis-coverable” (p. 239, capitalization in origi-nal). Hedström and Swedberg (1998:10)concur that causal explanation must addresshow a relationship came about. If we are se-rious about explaining variation in inequal-ity, our theories and analytic models mustinclude indicators of causal mechanisms.

Two disciplinary practices reinforce ourpreoccupation with motive-based theories:the balkanization of research on ascriptivestratification and our reliance on individual-level data. The balkanization of research re-flects the popular notion that different typesof ascriptive inequality have differentcauses. This parochialism conceals boththeir uniqueness and their fundamental simi-larities. All forms of ascriptive stratificationinvolve long-standing relations of inequalitywithin stable hierarchies that are similarlyordered across spheres. Only by breakingout of this parochialism can we find generalexplanations for ascriptive inequality anddiscover whether and how they must bemodified for particular ascriptive character-istics. Certainly the mechanisms that affectlevels of ascriptive inequality are not uniqueto specific ascriptive divisions. The formal-ization of Home Depot’s application and hir-ing procedures following a sex discrimina-tion lawsuit benefited men of color as wellas women (Sturm 2001). Although interdis-ciplinary collaboration is in vogue, scholarsinterested in ascriptive inequality must be-gin with intradisciplinary dialogue and col-laboration. For this to happen, the desire todevelop better explanations will not suffice;we need mechanisms that foster intradisci-plinary dialogue.

The second obstacle to identifying themechanisms that cause ascriptive inequalityis that most of the readily available datacome from surveys of individuals. Data forindividuals can address only the equality ofindividual-level inputs and outcomes. As aresult, the only explanations for which mostindividual-level data are suited are group-linked “deficiencies” (which are relevant be-cause of employers’ hypothesized motives)or the unobserved motives of unobservedactors. In analyses based on standard datasets, explanations involving unobserved mo-tives are necessarily speculative because the

data do not include allocators (and even ifthey did, their motives are all-but impossibleto know). Group-difference explanations areunsatisfying, both because they are foundedon implicit assumptions about employers’unmeasured motives and because they fail toindicate how group differences on indi-vidual-level independent variables give riseto group differences in outcomes. And bothapproaches ignore our discipline’s uniquestrength: the analysis of the operation of so-cial structures. To explain variation in levelsof inequality across ascriptively-definedgroups, across contexts, and over time, wemust analyze data for organizational and in-dividual allocators that include allocationmechanisms.

Intellectually, the solution is simple: con-centrate on allocation mechanisms. In ex-plaining social stratification, identifyingmechanisms is particularly important be-cause—as the methods for distributing socialgoods—they are the engines of equality andinequality. As a practical matter, reorientingour search for explanations will require amajor shift in the kinds of data in which ourdiscipline invests. A large share of publicfunding for sociology goes to surveying in-dividuals. As a result, the burden of collect-ing data that include mechanisms has fallenon individual researchers.

Publicly available data on employerswould permit a broad shift to the study ofmechanisms. Much of the mechanism-basedexplanatory research on ascriptive inequal-ity has come from just two data sets: the Na-tional Organizations Study (NOS) and theMulti-City Study of Urban Inequality(MCSUI). Although the researchers who col-lected these data made them available to theresearch community, the dissemination ofsuch data can take years. Collecting data likethe NOS and MCSUI for public use will beexpensive, but our continuing investment insurveying individuals is also costly in termsof the return in new knowledge. With respectto ascriptive inequality, increasingly sophis-ticated analyses of the same individual-leveldata usually tell us what we already know:that significant disparities exist. And theyfail to reveal what we don’t know: themechanisms that cause ascriptive inequalityto vary in intensity across groups and set-tings.


In the absence of public data sets that in-clude indicators of mechanisms, our primaryrecourse is the systematic observation ofhow specific mechanisms in particular set-tings affect levels of ascriptive inequality. Aswe accumulate empirical knowledge, we cangeneralize to more abstract mechanismswhose explanatory power extends beyondthe settings we have studied. My discussionof organizational-level mechanisms illus-trates how we can theoretically aggregatespecific mechanisms into more general ones.For example, organizations use many mech-anisms to ensure that allocators know or areignorant of the ascriptive characteristics ofthose they are evaluating; each mechanismentails attaching or eliminating ascriptiveidentifiers. For example, by investigatingwhich organizations do one, the other, orneither; whether there are conditions underwhich the effect of attaching or eliminatingascriptive information is the opposite ofthose summarized above and similar ques-tions, we can build general theory.

We stand to gain not only better researchand better theory; we stand to gain the op-portunity to meaningfully contribute to so-cial policy. Stratification scholarship is notsimply a matter of academic interest. It canbe consequential for the kinds of jobs peoplehave, the education they can afford for theirchildren, whether they have health insurance,and whether young people in poor neighbor-hoods have any basis to hope for a better fu-ture. We have done a stellar job of document-ing the disparities across ascriptively-definedgroups. Increasingly researchers mention thepolicy implications of their findings. For ex-ample, in the debate discussed above, Cancioet al. (1996) concluded from their analysesthat we need better enforcement of antidis-crimination laws, and Farkas and Vicknair(1996) called for policies to upgrade minori-ties’ cognitive skills. Both of these recom-mendations have merit, but neither of theanalyses on which the recommendationswere based provides persuasive support forthe recommended policy. If our analyses can-not convince other sociologists, how can wehope to convince policymakers? And analy-ses that do not address the causal mecha-nisms are not convincing.

By pursuing the mechanisms responsiblefor varying levels of inequality, our scholar-

ship can contribute to ameliorating these dis-parities. The division of labor in the socialsciences especially qualifies sociologists toaddress policies related to ascriptive in-equality. In pursuing motive-based explana-tions and analyzing individual-level data, wehave abdicated that role. Indeed, that abdi-cation inevitably follows from estimatingmodels without mechanisms, because suchmodels provide no guidance for developingsocial policies for a more just society. Pur-suing research that takes seriously how toreduce ascriptive inequality will advancescientific knowledge—and more important,it will produce scholarship that addresses thesocial inequality that drew many of us to so-ciology in the first place.

Barbara Reskin is the S. Frank Miyamoto Pro-fessor of Sociology at the University of Washing-ton. Among her recent publications are “Rethink-ing Employment Discrimination” (pp. 218–44 inThe New Economic Sociology, Russell Sage,2001), “Discrimination and Its Remedies” (pp.567–600 in Sourcebook on Labor Market Re-search, Plenum, 2001), and “Raising the Bar: ASocial Science Critique of Recent Increases toPassing Scores on the Bar Exam” (with DeborahMerritt and Lowell Hargens, Cincinnati Law Re-view, vol. 69, pp. 929–68). She has just finishedan amicus brief for the American SociologicalAssociation on behalf of the Student Intervenorsin Grutter v. Bollinger, a lawsuit challenging theaffirmative action program in the University ofMichigan Law School. She continues to studyways to assess occupational segregation acrossmultiple ascriptive groups and the institutionalfactors that contribute to racial and sex differ-ences in the careers of law faculty.

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